


Brother mine

by Lestrudelshmudel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 05:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lestrudelshmudel/pseuds/Lestrudelshmudel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If chess is Mycroft's life, he is stuck in a stalemate, and he is going to lose one bishop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brother mine

Maybe, growing up is realizing that you are worthless. I think that you have to accept that you are not good at the things you thought you were good at. The only thing I have left is politics, because now I cannot protect Sherlock, and that was my one redeeming quality.

But don't tell him that.

Sherlock was eight years old, and I was fifteen. He has hair like a tumbleweed and I have hair like a desert. He has a face structure that resembles a lemon and I have a face like an orange. He has eyes like the river and I have eyes like muddy water. But I am the clever one. Apparently. I mean, I solved Carl Power's murder long before him. The shoes. It was obvious, really; I was too smug to tell him where he was going wrong.

Now look where this has landed me.

I know it was James. James, he has hair like pitch. He has eyes like pitch and a twisted, dark spirit like pitch. Jim was ten years old and a murderer, and I am certain that he is the clever one.  
Jim, however, has a face like an orange. I can see myself in him without trying too hard. He is what I could be. He is what Sherlock could be. 

We are in a game of chess, Jim and I. We are in a stalemate. Or, more accurately,  _I_ am in stalemate, because whatever happens I betray one of my brothers. That's like picking a bishop to lose. It would help if they were not equally useful.

* * *

He offered me a cigarette and I took it. It was dark; we could see the smoke, just, balooning out in front of us.

"I didn't smoke when I was sixteen." I muttered as I breathed out, the harsh smell filling our small sky.

"I didn't have sex with Thomas Lancaster when I was fifteen."

"Piss off, Sherlock."

"Mh, gladly." He replied, dropping the cigarette lazily, the embers lying on the concrete. I waited for someone to stamp it out, and realized it would have to be me.

"If Mummy catches you, she'll have your guts for garters."

"No she won't." He smirked, because he knew I would always take the fall. "Jimmy!" he shouted, and soon my other little brother was stumbling out of the tree line, quite obviously drunk.

"What?" He asked, mimicking Sherlock's smirk as I eyed him heavily. "I'm eighteen now, Myc, I can do whatever I want."

"Try not to get pissed  _every_ night then, at least."

"Oh, brother mine, I wish it were that simple." He mimicked as he pushed past me to get inside our warmly lit house. He reeked of cheap wine and vodka, and I wondered which I had been drinking.

"He's going into the house pissed." Sherlock remarked, lighting another cigarette.

"It's his birthday. Mummy shouldn't be too upset."

"Mummy is strangely unpredicable."

 

I remember this night for two reasons; one, because it was James's birthday, and two, because it was the night before Sherlock went missing, and that is significant.

 


End file.
